Knife control in Scotland

"Calum Duke, a schoolboy from Glasgow working undercover, was able to buy a potentially lethal haul of blades including kitchen knives, daggers, dirks, hunting knives, craft knives and even an axe....

The findings follow a warning by police this week that the west of Scotland is in the grip of a “knife pandemic”. The number of murders involving a blade in the Strathclyde area is three times higher than
anywhere else in Britain.

Every week for the past six months, there have been 25 serious assaults with a knife and 13 of the 30 murders in the west of Scotland this year were committed with a blade.

The level of knife crime in Glasgow is similar to that in the most violent eastern European cities. The worst offenders are male and between 15 and 25.....

The Bhs store in Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre had signs on display warning: “It is an offence to sell knives to people under 16 years of age”, but Duke was still able to buy a set of six steak knives without being challenged.

Similar warning notices were on display at the Co-op store in the Paisley Centre, where he was able to buy a cooking knife with a six-inch blade."